Stories for 2015

Uruguayan representatives of public entities who travelled to the United Kingdom and Brazil fed back on their experiences on Public-Private Partnership in an event held in the central office of the National Development Corporation (CND) in Montevideo.

This short week and the month of January will test if the Argentine administration of president Mauricio Macri can continue to build up Central Bank reserves following on the decision to end the dollar clamp, let the foreign exchange float, together with the prospect of loans and hoarded grain sales.

Chile’s Congress has approved a law granting free university education to many of the country’s students. The law was approved by both houses of the legislature last week before Christmas. The measure is a pillar of President Michelle Bachelet’s reform promises and is expected to aid about 200,000 students at state universities.

A serious fire on board a cruise ship in November led to a large-scale rescue operation off the Falkland Islands and means that three visits to South Georgia in the new year are likely to be cancelled, according to the latest South Georgia Newsletter.

Five of the largest banks in the UK paid no corporation tax in 2014, despite making billions of pounds in profits, analysis by Reuters has shown. JP Morgan, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Deutsche Bank, Nomura Holdings and Morgan Stanley paid no corporation tax at all, the news agency said. The banks offset past losses against their taxable income for 2013-14.

Tierra del Fuego tourism industry praised the Argentine government's decisions to end the dollar clamp and make more transparent the foreign money exchange because this will make the country, and Tierra del Fuego, highly competitive internationally. However they also cautioned that consideration must be given to domestic and regional tourists which make up almost 45% of the number of the people visiting the extreme south of Argentina.

The Argentine government will issue bonds worth US$5 billion to be auctioned this week to pay back debt from imports during the previous Cristina Fernandez administration, according to a resolution published by the current government.

Argentina's foreign minister Susana Malcorra stated that the conflict with the United Kingdom over the Falklands/Malvinas Islands sovereignty is “a constitutional issue, not optional”, and described the position of the former Cristina Fernandez administration on the matter as “too tough”, while pledging that the “conflict must and will be integrated into a wider perspective”.